Spring Time Launch

10 April 2019

It sure does seem like a long time since we have been able to get out on our local tailwaters. It is finally spring launch time on the Hiwassee river. After one of the longest rainy seasons on record, we can see the light...sunlight.

We began running the drift boats on the Hiwassee river a couple of weeks ago, still on high water, and the fishing has been good since the firstlaunch. Now the flow rates have been reduced to a low water schedule. Being one of the high mountain reservoirs with a relatively small watershed, the Hiwassee usually becomes fishable before many of the other larger, lower elevation tailwaters. We look for them to fall into play very soon. Currently on the warm days, we can have good hatches of both mayflies and caddis.

Our area trout have not seen any fishermen for months now and with moderate weather conditions ahead, this should be an excellent season. We are currently fishing the Hiwassee and Tellico rivers. I think the larger Knoxville area rivers will see reduced flows and become fishable within 2 weeks. As always, we are keeping our eye on the Cumberland for any spring windows of opportunity it may yield.

Here are a couple of photos from our recent Hiwassee adventures and the bottom pic is The Paloma River Valley in all its glory just outside of Coyhaique, Chile taken in February on our most recent Patagonia excursion. We have a couple of remaining slots for this trip on February 15th-22nd, 2020.